Tag: actors

It only makes sense that Avatar: The Last Airbender, an impressive animate television series (we think, the best, the most impressive), should also have an impressive list of voice acting talents.

And Avatar doesn’t just boast beloved voice acting pipes like Mark Hamill (Fire Lord Ozai) and Scott Menville (an actor playing Sokka); it also sneaks in several guest cameos, like Jason Isaacs, who plays Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter movies (and Avatar’s equally evil General Zhao), Serena Williams (who voices a prison guard), and freaking George Takei (who voices a prison warden). Evidently, there are a lot of prison characters in Avatar.

But the series’ principle cast of voice actors really brings it all home, voicing Aang, Sokka, Katara, Toph, and Zuko. And, of course Appa and Momo, voiced by Dee Bradley Baker, who said he made up most of the sounds just based on the sketches he received of the two creatures (which are closest to a lemur and a bison).

Here are all the actors who voiced the major characters.

Zach Tyler (Aang)

Nickelodeon

Tyler was eleven when doing the voice acting for Aang (12 in the show) in season 1. Tyler also did voice acting work for The Backyardigans and The Ant Bully, but more or less disappeared after the series. Typical Avatar move.

Jack De Sena (Sokka)

Nickelodeon

De Sena described Sokka as a goofball and said he mostly had to just exaggerate all of his instinctual voices. (Which must mean De Sena is also kind of a goofball; people of a certain age will remember him as such on Nickelodeon’s All That.) He’s now the voice of Callum in Netflix’s The Dragon Prince.

Mae Whitman (Katara)

Nickelodeon

Whitman is also a recording artist and screen actor (best known for her roles in Arrested Development and Good Girls), appearing in Independence Day when she was eight.

Dante Basco (Zuko)

Nickelodeon

Basco was one of the older voice talents for the series’ kids. He was 28 during the show’s first season. Basco also voices Jake Long in American Dragon: Jake Long and Iroh II in The Legend of Korra.

Jessie Flower (Toph)

Nickelodeon

Flower was the same age as Toph (12) during some of the voice acting.

Mako Iwamatsu (Uncle Iroh)

Nickelodeon

Maybe the most accomplished actor in the cast, Mako was nominated for both an Academy Award and a Tony. He passed away after the second season of the series. Greg Baldwin then became the voice of Iroh as well as another famous Mako role: Aku in Samurai Jack.

Grey Griffin/DeLisle (Azula)

Nickelodeon

DeLisle has voiced everything. She was Sam in Danny Phantom, Mandy from The Grim Adventures of Bill & Mandy, and Daphne from Scooby-Doo. She now voices the characters of Martin, Sherri and Terri on The Simpsons.

When auditioning to get the roles they want, sometimes actors make strange choices. For instance, Anne Hathaway went into her The Dark Knight Rises audition dressed as Harley Quinn, before realizing she was there for the role of Catwoman. Sometimes, though, it’s not the actor’s idea to do strange things when auditioning. Take Nicholas Hoult, for example.

The actor has played the role of Hank “Beast” McCoy in four different X-Men movies, beginning with 2011’s X-Men: First Class. To get that role, a peculiar request was made of Hoult. “[Director] Matthew Vaughn asked me to do a couple of takes in an American accent as you kind of saw the character. But then also do a take doing an impression of Stewie Griffin from Family Guy,” he remembered in an interview with GQ.

Thankfully, Hoult knew the show well. “I had watched a lot of Family Guy in my teen years growing up, so I was like, ‘OK, I think I’ve got a pretty good impression of Stewie Griffin lined up,'” he said. He recorded himself reading lines as Stewie, along with the rest of his audition and submitted it to Vaughn. Thankfully, it worked, and the rest of history.

While Hoult’s time as Beast may have come to an end after X-Men: Dark Phoenix, there’s still at least one more movie on the way for the franchise. New Mutants, which focuses on a different set of mutants, was just given a new release date, after being postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

They all figure, somehow, they’ll be able to weather the storm financially. But they hurt for the thousands — both on stage and behind the scenes — who lost their jobs seven weeks ago and are in for a long haul until the lights go back on on Broadway.

“It’s a terrible, terrible kind of uncertainty to live with,” Kuhn, who was set to open this month in Stephen Sondheim’s “Assassins,” told The Post from her home in lower Manhattan.

In a single day, March 12, New Yorkers in the theater world found themselves jobless after Gov. Andrew Cuomo ordered a stop of all gatherings of 500 or more to slow the spread of COVID-19. The Broadway League, the trade group representing the theaters, is hoping to turn the lights back on sometime in September.

A deal struck between the theaters and labor unions paid workers for the first few weeks of the shutdown and covered their health insurance for at least a month; the sides are talking to work through the many health and financial worries tied to the long downtime.

Olivo, who plays Satine, is adamant that something good has to come from all the personal suffering. The crisis has changed her, and she believes it will change everyone in theater.

“I have too many friends who have fallen ill, some in the hospital, some we even thought we might lose,” the 2009 Tony winner for a revival of “West Side Story” told The Post from her home in Madison, Wis. “I kind of feel this is a really great time for all of us to train, not just as artists, but as human beings.”

She also is calling on theater actors to become what she calls “actorivists.”

“We’ve all become fatigued and complacent,” Olivo said. “It’s important to self-care … and then you need to brush yourself off, figure out what your part is and get moving.”

Selig is seeing things far differently these days, too. He’s more appreciative of his back-to-back hit shows — three years in “The Book of Mormon” and his three years so far as Aaron in “Mean Girls.”

The money he saved is keeping him afloat when so many of his close friends can’t make the rent.

“Every single person I’ve ever worked with doesn’t have a job,” Selig told The Post from his home in Hewitt, N.J. “They truly have no money coming in.”

What they’re going through reminds him how much he has taken for granted, from going out for drinks after the show to being untouched — so far — by the deadly infection.

“I’ll probably make it out OK,” Selig said. “But I think about families losing members, the medical staff, the first responders who are truly risking everything.”

Warren jumps rope in her Upper West Side apartment so she’s in shape when she gets back on stage. And she figures she can do voice work if money runs low.

But her emotions haven’t been so easy to take control of. This year was a big one for the show, which debuted in November, and for Warren personally.

She portrayed Tina Turner first in London, and now on Broadway. She was looking forward to ending her run sometime around the time of the June 7 Tony awards, which have now been postponed.

“I’m very, very heartbroken for the show and I’m very heartbroken for my entire community,” said Warren, who was nominated for a Tony in 2016 for “Shuffle Along.”

“We don’t have to create the greatest masterpiece,” Warren said. “It’s OK to just survive right now. It’s OK to ask for help. And it’s OK to help others.”

That’s what she and the others are doing.

They’re all helping raise money for the Actors Fund, a social services group for the entertainment industry, and Covenant House, which operates a nationwide network of shelters and programs for homeless kids.

A month ago, the nonprofit Broadway Cares launched a $1 million online fund-raising campaign that will benefit the Actors Fund. Nearly two dozen producers, led by Spencer Ross of “Company,” “The Minutes,” and “Jagged Little Pill,” promised to match the money, up to $1 million.

“In action, there can be hope,” said Tom Viola, Broadway Cares’ executive director.

So far, Viola’s organization has raised $4.2 million, and a second $1 million match challenge is underway, launched by Christine Schwarzman and Darren Johnston of No Guarantees theatrical production company.

“I don’t know any group like the theater so interested in helping each other out,” Kuhn said. “I just hope the actors who are really suffering know that they have a community that really supports them.”

This website uses cookies to improve your user experience and to provide you with advertisements that are relevant to your interests. By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to our use of cookies.Ok